Page 1 blog: Survival of the fittest

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In film and drama, many people work over 70 hours a week, often more. To make this into something more tangible, here it is broken down for a typical six day week as part of an 11 day fortnight.

Let’s take the example of a costume assistant on straight days; 6am call time, 8am on camera and 7pm wrap.

A 6am call to costume on location, which could be anywhere. Working backwards, this could mean perhaps a 1 hour drive from your house and perhaps another 30 minutes to wake up, shower and get dressed. Which means setting your alarm for 0430am, every day, for a six day week.

646 Then, once you arrive at location, you then have a full day on set dealing with any number of issues, incidents and emergencies until...

Wrap at 7pm, disrobe actors, reset for next day. Leave location at 7:30pm if you’re lucky. Then, a 1 hour drive home. That means you arrive home at 8:30pm.....

If you go to bed the moment you get home, you will get your recommended 8 hours sleep. You also need to eat an evening meal, catch up with loved ones, deal with any pressing domestic issues, and try to relax your mind and body from the day.

From the moment you wake up (0430) to the moment you get home (2030), you’ve done nothing but work, or get to and from work. That’s 16 hours in one day. That’s a NORMAL DAY.

16 hours x 6 days = 96 hours (out of a week containing only 168 hours).

That’s nearly 60% of the entire week, not including sleep. If you included the recommend 8 hours of sleep per night into consideration, you’re looking at 152 hours out of 168. Leaving you with just 16 hours a week away from work and not sleeping.

A six week shoot of eleven day fortnights is a physically and mentally demanding job. You have to keep calm, organised, friendly and professional at all times. Friction occasionally occurs when colleagues are tired and naturally enough, short fused.

New entrants should be able to hack the pace. If you find yourself struggling to keep up, here are some simple steps to fight the fatigue.  We asked a GP to give us some tips;

  • Sleep: Get as much as you are able, suspend some social activities during the course of a shoot, burning the candles at both ends doesn’t last long. Try to avoid alcohol if you can, booze disrupts your sleep patterns and can leave you cranky, as this NHS article explains. http://www.nhslocal.nhs.uk/story/lifestyle/alcohol-and-sleep
  • Diet:  Eat Breakfast! There’s a reason they call it the most important meal in the day.  Don’t skip meals, eat fruit in between and drink plenty of water. A good diet will give you good fuel for the day and help you maintain concentration.
  • Caffeine: Most people enjoy a good coffee, however, most film caterers do not provide good coffee. It's common sense but be sure not to drink caffeine late in the day as it will affect your sleep. Ease off on the energy drinks, too much of that and you’ll be shaking like a shitting dog.
  • Pace yourself during the working day. Crew spend longer than most other occupations at work, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
  • Supplements: Some general vitamin supplements can be useful to boost your wellbeing. Zinc tablets boost your immune system if you feel illness coming on. Centrum and other vitamin tablets are easy to get hold of. You’re not looking to boost yourself like Arnold Schwarzenegger, just keep illness away if possible.
  • Mental Stimulation: The daily trudge of very long hours can often leaving you feeling isolated from the wider world. Keep your mind engaged with something outside of your everyday working life. Try and keep a book on the go so you can stop thinking about work and keep your mind active on something else.
  • Exercise: The last thing you want to do when you’ve worked a 96 hour week is head to the gym, but the benefits of exercise are obvious. Can you incorporate some exercise into your working day? If the location is close to home, could you cycle to it? Can you fit a brisk 10 minute walk after lunchtime?

There is one more thing we need to add to this list of looking after your-self... It’s often a taboo subject yet many people suffer the same thing and yet say nothing about their mental health.

The industry can be demanding and appear unsympathetic but if you are worried about depression, anxiety or your mental wellbeing, there is help and support available. The Page 1 collective speaks with a lot of people, both in and out of the industry, if you are worried about yourself, you are definitly not alone.

Here’s some advice from the Mind website:

“If you experience mental distress, it can be frightening and you may feel alone. If this is a new experience, you may not know what is happening. If you have experienced similar symptoms before then you will know what does and does not help you in such circumstances. There are a number of actions you can take:

  • Visit a General Practitioner (GP), if you can, to be referred to suitable treatment.
  • Talk to someone you trust, saying what has helped you in the past, if appropriate.
  • Draw up a crisis card, which is a plan of action for people to follow if you start to show signs that indicate that you need help.”

Here’s a link to their website. http://www.mind.org.ukfor more information and contact helplines.

The number for the Samaritans is 08457 90 90 90. You may not need it, but someone you know might. Post it to your facebook or twitter, you might just help someone who is too afraid to ask for it....

 

Thanks for reading. Visit thecallsheet.co.uk